Experimenting with creating nail art using non-nail art items!

Do you ever get the urge to just play with your nail art supplies? I certainly do, and lots of times I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to end up with or if it's even going to work. The nails in this post show you some of my latest experiments.

This set of nails started when I found a certain pack of art supplies on sale. Serious sale, as in less than a dollar each. Of course I snapped up several of each, because I felt pretty sure they'd be snapped up in no time, which they were.

After playing with that purchase for a bit, I decided to try out another art supply to see if I could come up with something fun with them. Here are the results... can you guess how I did these?

I'll give you a hint- the top four are with one type of art medium, and the bottom three are a different one. So what do you think- do you have any idea how I did these? Leave me a comment giving me your best guess. I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Some polishes may have been provided by the brand for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Acrylic Rainbow- a new take on an easy gradient

Hey, does anyone remember when I teased this photo, and said I was working on a video for it? Well, this is the finished nail from the video, and I absolutely love it! I FINALLY finished the darn thing, and maybe figured a bit more out about how to do some video editing. Whatever, I suck...

But it's READY! And it's EASY! Seriously, if you can brush back and forth, you can do this! And look at the finished product! They're filled with brush strokes and beautifully imperfect, so no matter what you do with it, it comes out gorgeous!

The video is right here, so if you'd like to learn how to do this, spend 5 minutes with me and see how it's done! If you like it, you can always subscribe, hit the thumbs up, tell your friends, whatever... it's all good. :D

 

 Rainbows!! Color!! I'm such a child...

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Rainbows... yes, it's ANOTHER gradient video!

Does anyone remember a nail design I did a couple of years ago that looked like this?

I got quite a few requests for a tutorial on how to achieve this look, but I was never able to capture the process using photographs. Now, however, I have a brand-new tutorial showing you what you need to make your own soft, streaky rainbow! It's coming soon, so let me know if you're interested!

Yea, it's a teaser. Sue me. :D

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Orange Rays

Wow, looks like I had a couple of extra Halloween nails hiding that I didn't get to share with you. That's ok, though, because this is a lovely technique you can use with any colors you like, to create something soft and subtle or bold like I'm showing.

I started this nail using a Milani's High Speed Fast Dry Polish in Jiffy Orange, an intensely pigmented orange creme that does indeed dry quickly. Once it was dry, I added strips of nail striping tape radiating out from one spot on the lower left of the nail. I made sure to cut the tape long enough to leave excess on the end so that I could remove it easily once the next polish was on, and I pressed all the strips down carefully to make sure they were solidly adhered.

Again, let me repeat that it's crucial that your polish be completely dry for this step. If it isn't, you end up with some really funky stuff that needed to be removed so you can try again. It's not worth trying to rush it.

Once the striping tape is applied, I went over the top of the whole nail using Wet n Wild's Black Creme, which is unsurprisingly a black creme polish. As soon as the polish was applied I pulled each strip of tape off one by one, leaving crisp orange lines across the nail. Once again, I let this dry for a few minutes.

Because I felt the nail was still lacking something, I decided to add a spot of glitter. I used Milani's Gold Glitz, which added a bit of glam to the design. After giving this a couple of minutes to dry I then topped the whole thing off with a couple of coats of ProFX topcoat and called it a day.

I've put together a few examples of different color combinations to show just how versatile this design can be. I think it would be fun to do a rainbow ombre for the base coat, with an opaque creme on top. Or you could do the base coat in a dark glitter like Milani's Silver Dazzle and a bright gradient on top!  Hopefully you'll see something that inspires you to play!

Some polishes were provided by the brands for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

More Experimenting With Striping tape

I recently mentioned that I've been experimenting with striping tape. I've got an in-progress design to share with you tonight, and I'm absolutely in love with this one! It's pretty labor-intensive, but it's a really special look and it's not all that difficult.

For this design, I started with a sponged gradient. I chose five pastel polishes that looked soft and pretty together. I created my sponged gradient onto this nail (and another, which you'll see in my next post) and let it dry. It's important to let this totally dry, because if the polish is at all wet, the striping tape will make quite a mess.

Once the nail was dry, I started cutting pieces of striping tape to apply to the nail. I tried to keep the tape fairly evenly spaced to create a diagonal across the nail. This was harder than I expected, but I still think it's something that can be done if you really want to. You could also leave wider spaces between the tape to end up with something like my last design. The tape is going to be a mask for our next layer of polish, so the more open space you leave between the tape, the less of the gradient you'll see once you're finished.

Once all the tape was in place, I applied a fairly thick coat of white polish to make sure it was opaque. Then while the polish was still wet I peeled the striping tape off. You can see toward the middle of the nail where I tried to pull two pieces of tape off at once and actually lifted some of the white polish right off the nail. Oops!

I then let everything dry for a few minutes, then added a coat of Pro FX. Unfortunately, my bottle had gotten a bit thick and I tried thinning it down right before applying it. Talk about a bubble fest! If you need to thin your topcoat, do it a few hours before you need to use it!

That's all there is to creating this look! If you find the written instructions confusing and would like to see a video on how to do this, leave me a comment. I could probably be persuaded to show you how to do this on YouTube. :D

Also, be sure to come back tomorrow to see how I dressed this patterned nail up! I'm super happy with how this came out, and I can't wait to share it with you!

Some polishes were provided by the brand for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Wheee, I've finally figured it out!

Ok,  I've been working on this for a couple of weeks now, and I finally got it to work the way I wanted it to! I've got a video filmed, and am working on editing it. Until then, here's a teaser for what you'll learn to do soon!

The good news is this technique is quick, easy, and fun! It's also wonderful for you creative types, because you can do just about anything you like- greyscale images, color images, photos, clip art... the sky is the limit!

And since this is so easy, my rarely-seen right hand is making an appearance as well! You can see that they look alike! For once, you don't have to be skilled with your non-dominant hand. You can easily do designs that match!

So, rest assured, I've got the video shot and am working on editing it. I just got so excited I needed to share this!

I am absolutely loving this new technique...

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Flashback: More splatters, on black!

Ugh. Still dealing with computer issues. I'm typing this from my husband's computer. *sighs* It will get fixed, I promise... but til then, look at this gorgeous set of nails I did way back in July of 2010!

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You know, I admit it. I am totally a child of the 80s. I love neon, I love wild prints, and I love paint splats. This set of nails reminds me of a sweatshirt I had in grade school, only the shirt was white instead of black. But what better color than black to make colors pop?

You can see how vivid the colors are. I can't lie, I want to keep these all for myself! So much fun, but at least I can redo them if I decide to!

This set of nails is made with a custom-mixed rainbow of acrylic paints, so that they have the same level of intensity. I love the black base, and the topcoat makes the colors so intense and glassy!

I won't lie, I can see doing this design with shimmers, metallics, glitters... monochromatic colors, analogous colors... I think it'd be fun no matter HOW I mixed it up! It's just downright FUN! Oooh, imagine white splats on a black background, with the occasional splat of red! There are so many ways to do this, and I don't know if any are better than the others. You'll definitely see this pattern again, if only on Etsy! Speaking of Etsy, these will be going up as soon as I finish this post.

I'm so excited to add that I've got some surprises coming up soon! I'm planning some videos, both of some of those dramatic, color-shifting polishes in the sun as well as some technique videos. If you have anything you'd like to see, feel free to leave requests in the comments!

And oy, I've just looked at the clock to see that once again, I'm catching 7:30am from the wrong side. I think I need to go to sleep. Man... one of these days I'll get my internal clock set right again.

...maybe. :D

I really am going to get things fixed around here, I promise!

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Princess P-Nut's Zebra Nails

Ahh, weekends! We went to our friend's house again yesterday and this time I brought my nail polishes with me! I'd planned to do nails for more than just her daughter, but the fibro monster reared its head and said, "Nope, you're done!" At least I was able to get hers done!

We decided to call her Princess P'nut, courtesy of her mom. They'd seen my video on making sponged ombre nails and P'nut was really wanting rainbow nails. She also loved the zebra, so together we picked out the colors for her gradient. She chose different colors than I'd used, and I think they worked well together!

She also chose to put rainbow sparkles over the rainbow gradient but under the zebra stripes, unlike the way I'd done mine. I used Jessica Silver Holographic topcoat for the sparkles this time. I love that polish!

Since I'd left my acrylic paints at home, I used Princess P'Nut's acrylic craft paints to do the zebra stripes. As you can see, they came out just as well as with my artist's grade acrylic. Proof that you don't need to spend a ton on acrylic paints!

However, it's obvious that even though I brought my cleanup brush, I'm just not as good at cleanup on other people as I am on myself. I clearly missed lots of stuff, but my that point I was pretty tired and shaky. Ah well, it'll come off in the bath!

Princess P'nut absolutely loved her nails, and kept looking at them off and on. I was so happy! I love sharing the fun of nail art, and she definitely enjoyed it!

The rest of the day was lots of fun too! P'nut's mom made burrito fixings, and those were absolutely delicious! Then she'd made a blackberry cobbler, and we brought chocolate chip cookies. Way too much deliciousness... but who's complaining?

I can't talk about visiting without mention the snugglebunny animals. When I first sat down, Rico ran over and hopped into my lap! He let me scritch him for 10 minutes or so, then was finished. Cats are so mercurial!

Later in the day, we all went to sit in the grass and watch the chickens play in the leaves... such cuties! My husband snapped this gorgeous shot of Rico blatantly ignoring the chickens. He's so beautiful!

There's just something about orange cats that I love. I've yet to meet an orange tabby that wasn't a sweetiepie!

Finally, I have to share this picture of Boo the dachshund. Poor baby had been lying on the back sofa cushions and ended up slipping down behind them. He tried and tried to get out, but his little legs were just too short! Meanie that I am, I just had to get a picture of him looking so dejected.

We helped him up not long after this photo was taken. Surprisingly enough, he ended up sitting on my lap for a good two hours! Normally if his favorite person is home, he's sitting with her. But even though she was home, he'd decided he was snuggling me instead!

At one point, he'd been lying with his front half draped across my lap. He stretched and rolled over onto his back, with his little front legs sort of poking into the air, and he leaned his head back and started making the cutest little wheezy whimpers of contentment! I was absolutely squeeful!

So yea... yesterday was filled with lots of laughter, good food and good friends. You can't ask for more than that!

There's a reason I'm not a nail tech.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Rainbow Zebra- how to do the zebra print

Whew, I finally got this one edited and uploaded! Here's the second half of the rainbow zebra tutorial... Hopefully it makes sense!

I love the metallic sparkle of the left nail. It's sponged over silver, as opposed to the right which is over white.

I love zebras. They're cute!

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Rainbows and Holos and Zebras, Oh MY!

Tonight, I am exhausted. I didn't sleep last night, and I only napped for a couple of hours this afternoon. Then, I taught a 3 hour guest-lecture in my husband's photoshop class. It was loads of fun, but now I have not only used up my spoons, I've borrowed from next week's spoons. I am utterly and completely spoonless.

So, instead of writing up how I made what I'm wearing, I'll simply post pic spam. Let today be known as Spammy Tuesday! If you have questions about how I made this, just ask.

 

 

 

Jessica Holographic Topcoats were provided by the manufacturer for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.